ACC and Primates Reject Separate Structure for Traditionalists
Episcopal News Service. February 2, 1993 [93015]
A resolution approved overwhelmingly on January 28 by the joint meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) and the Anglican Communion's primates rejected a push for a separate ecclesial jurisdiction to serve parishes opposed to the ordination of women.
In the wake of the recent decision by the Church of England and other Anglican provinces to allow the ordination of women to the priesthood, members of the joint meeting grappled once again with the difficult task of holding the communion together despite differences on the subject.
After reaffirming "the continuing place in the Anglican Communion both of those who oppose and those who accept the ordination of women," and committing the joint meeting to "maintaining the highest level of communion within the Anglican Communion in the future," the resolution clearly restated the position of a 1988 Lambeth Conference action that denied the possibility of "parallel" or "nongeographical" jurisdictions.
Prior to the meeting, two groups of bishops -- an International Bishops' Conference on Faith and Order, a group of about 50 bishops who met in London in June 1992, and five bishops who are members of the Episcopal Synod of America (ESA) in the United States -- wrote to Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey to seek some form of separate structure for traditionalists in the Anglican Communion.
The ESA request, drafted in December 1992, expressed fear that the Rev. Jack Iker would not receive consent to be consecrated a bishop in the Episcopal Church because he opposed the ordination of women to the priesthood. The ESA bishops said that they felt compelled to "seek some form of ecclesial community which will enable us to remain true to the historic faith and practice as expressed in our Anglican heritage."
"Is there going to be a place for people who oppose the majority viewpoint?" asked the Rt. Rev. Paul Richardson, bishop of Aipo Rongo, Papua New Guinea. This was the main issue raised by the Faith and Order bishops and other traditionalists.
Parishioners, Richardson said, need to feel "relatively in sympathy with their bishop. They should not feel they are scorned or despised." A "non-geographic diocese," he argued, is a perfectly reasonable solution.
"I think we're still very much hung up on the idea of geographic dioceses," Richardson contended, and added, "I think there's a little bit of paranoia about people invading their dioceses."
The Rt. Rev. Colin James, bishop of Winchester, England, said that his concern is to maintain "interim arrangements to help people live side by side." Traditionalists opposed to women's ordination have seen increasing signs of a "new orthodoxy test," James said. "Unless you consent to the ordination of women, you can't be considered to become a bishop."
What was being sought at this meeting, James said, "is a significant signal from here that we hear what you're saying," and that traditionalists are "still regarded as loyal Anglicans in good standing, that our position is an acceptable theological position to hold."
Women priests are "not going to go away," no matter what the opposition from traditionalists, said the Rev. Barbara Clay, rector of St. Laurence Anglican Church in British Columbia, Canada, and the only woman priest on the ACC. She urged traditionalists to feel more hopeful about their future, pointing out that "those of us in the minority for years have survived."
Clay added, "I really, really wish that we as a church could spend as much time talking about what we do and not about who is going to do it."
Women and men who approve of women's ordination can also form "a very isolated minority" in dioceses that oppose it, noted Dr. Muriel Porter of Victoria, Australia. She pleaded that bishops of such dioceses be pastoral to their needs as well, even to the point of inviting women priests to minister to them. She also expressed desire that women be included on the new Eames Commission.
Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu and Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey both stressed the importance of finding ways to live together. "We agree on too many other issues to allow ourselves to be separated," Tutu said. The wider church must "clearly, genuinely respect the integrity of those opposed to the ordination of women," he said. "If they are diminished, whether or not we like it, we are diminished." Carey played the peacemaker in the debate, urging each side to approach the arguments in a spirit of generosity.
In the end, participants reaffirmed the position adopted at former Lambeth Conferences that it is "inappropriate behavior for any bishop or priest of this Communion to exercise episcopal or pastoral ministry within a diocese without first obtaining the permission and invitation of the ecclesial authority thereof." At the same time, participants called for pastoral provisions to minister to those opposed to women's ordination, specifically through the continuation of the archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate, otherwise known as the Eames Commission after its chair, Archbishop Robert Eames, primate of Ireland.
The resolution also "calls upon the bishops of the Anglican Communion to be scrupulously fair in the exercise of pastoral care to those who oppose and those who accept the ordination of women."
Bishop Mark Dyer of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a member of the Eames Commission and the ACC, predicted that ESA bishops would be disappointed with the joint conference's resolution, but probably would not leave the Anglican fold. "What [they are] asking for in all of the documentation I've seen through the years is an extra-territorial and even extra-provincial jurisdiction for those with doctrinal objections to the ordination of women," Dyer said.
Although the action of the joint meeting is advisory, its passage should be seen as "a double whammy," Dyer concluded. "I would say it closes the door on that issue [a separate jurisdiction], with the pastoral door still open with the Eames Commission."